INFORMATION MANAGEMENT NETWORK WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING SPONSORS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THIS EVENT

IMN’S HIGH-NET-WORTH REAL ESTATE INVESTING SYMPOSIUM REGISTRATION INFORMATION September 9-10, 2002

The Simpson Organization, Inc. (“TSO”) is a real estate investment banking firm that focuses on the acquisition of opportunistic real estate assets in primary Southeastern markets.TSO oversees every detail of the value-creation process. As acquisition agent our understanding of current market conditions and our keen sense of future market trends allow us to identify assets worthy of investment. We underwrite the asset’s risk and return components, negotiate a prudent transaction price and establish an investment strategy and business plan for each asset. As asset and property manager, we give direct attention to the execution of the plan in order to maximize value. Our management skills and expertise transform overlooked and underperforming assets into stable cash-producing assets. Each principal in our organization has thirty years of real estate experience and invests personal capital in every asset we sponsor. We believe that this mutual alignment with our co-investors encourages us to make profits for all those who have committed capital to our investments.We guarantee that our financial results in an investment will parallel your financial results as a co-investor with us.

Prudential may acquire TMW Real Estate Group

Atlanta Business Chronicle - August 23, 2002 by Jarred Schenke

A longtime Atlanta real estate investment firm is likely to be bought out in a big way.

Privately held TMW Real Estate Group and its German parent are negotiating a deal with insurance giant Prudential Financial Inc. (NYSE: PRU), sources told Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Sources said the purchase could include TMW's 29 million-square-foot real estate portfolio — which involves more than $4 billion in high-caliber office towers and other real estate properties in Atlanta and other major U.S. cities — as well as the company's European advisory operations.

The two parties have settled on terms for the U.S. portfolio purchase, but are still negotiating for the European assets, sources said. The potential purchase price for TMW was undisclosed as of press time.

If all goes well, the two companies are expected to make an announcement within four to six weeks, sources said.

Officials with TMW and Prudential declined to comment.

"We don't respond to rumors in the marketplace," said Prudential spokesperson Theresa Miller.

TMW Real Estate is the American arm of a Germany-based real estate investment syndicate, TMW Immobllen. TMW Real Estate places investment money from German insurance companies, private banks and individual investors into real estate holdings around the world, according to TMW's Web site (http://www.tmw-atlanta.com).

The company has ownership interest in nine office properties in Atlanta , including some major class A towers such as the 195,400-square-foot One Live Oak Center , the 227,000-square-foot The Peachtree and the 386,600-square-foot Two Ravinia. TMW also has investments in the 211 Perimeter Center building; Perimeter Square West ; Antec Office Building ; Northridge Business Park ; The Gwinnett Building and Peachtree Dunwoody Pavilion.

TMW also has ownership interest in trophy towers in other major cities, including the 181 West Madison building in Chicago, which the firm purchased in July for $248 million; the MTV Building in Los Angeles; the 1.2 million-square-foot The Chrysler Building and the 1.4 million-square-foot 666 Fifth Avenue building in New York City; and the 540,000-square-foot 333 Bush Street office/condominium building in San Francisco.

TMW's portfolio makes it attractive to Prudential's real estate investment arm, said Scott Rogers, senior real estate adviser with Sperry Van Ness/Real Estate Capital Advisors in Atlanta .

"What the incentive could be for Prudential is they're going to get a trophy portfolio in some outstanding locations in 24-hour cities," Rogers said.

Prudential owns more than 95 million square feet of real estate, said Miller, the company's spokesperson. That doesn't include any major trophy office towers, she said. The company did not disclose any ownership interests in Atlanta .

But TMW also offers something even more lucrative to Prudential: access to German capital.

"I assume that Prudential's motivation in buying TMW is to gain that advisory income and gain access to the German fund-raising market that they didn't otherwise have," said Boyd Simpson, president of Atlanta-based real estate investment firm The Simpson Organization.

For Prudential to gain a foothold into the German capital market on its own could be costly and time-consuming, Simpson said. Purchasing an existing structure is the easiest solution.

But Simpson also cautioned that buying TMW's advisory company — and hence access to German capital — doesn't necessarily mean that Prudential will shovel out funds for all of TMW's portfolio.

"Life insurance companies in the past decade have not been significant acquirers of real property for the most part," Simpson said.

In fact, insurance companies have unloaded more real estate than they acquired during that time, he said.

Connecting stores to sales and savings

Atlanta Business Chronicle - June 21, 2002 by Jim Love

After two years of declining profits, including a 25 percent drop last year alone, some convenience store owners are looking to outer space for ways to reverse the trend.

Six major oil companies that own or supply more than 8,000 convenience stores in Canada and the United States have formed a company to explore the options. The result is Onvance, an Atlanta company that is installing satellite communication systems designed to help convenience stores cut operating costs and increase sales.

After more than a year of testing the concept in stores in Raleigh , N.C. , and Denver , Onvance has installed the satellite communication systems in about 350 convenience stores in six states during the past year. Onvance is introducing the service to Georgia this summer by installing the system in about 40 stores in Columbus and Augusta, said Alan Slothower, president and chief operating officer of Onvance.

The system provides a 90-minute loop of video programming that includes about 60 percent advertising and 40 percent content, such as news, weather, sports and music videos. Tests have shown that sales at convenience stores that use the video increase about 7 percent, Slothower said.

The system also cuts costs for the stores by providing high-speed Internet access for processing credit-card and debit-card transactions, allowing the stores to eliminate telephone lines dedicated to those transactions, he said.

In addition to the satellite system, Onvance installs package mailing boxes in the stores, which attract more people, and potential customers, into the stores.

Onvance has a goal of putting the system into more than 3,000 stores by the end of the year. During the past month, the company began offering the system to convenience stores outside the original six oil companies and is looking for customers in the Atlanta area, Slothower said. If everything goes as planned, Onvance will have the system in about 30,000 stores within the next five years, he said.

Slothower declined to disclose the annual revenue of the company but said the company isn't profitable yet. The company derives revenue from selling time on the video loop to advertisers and charging convenience stores a monthly fee, Slothower said.

Enhancing savings, profit

Onvance charges each store $350 a month for the service.

In return, store owners save about $150 each month on their telephone bills while adding about $1,400 in profits from the advertising and more than $600 in profits from the package delivery service each month, he said.

"That's the goal," said Bill Dumont, senior vice president of strategic marketing for Crown Central Petroleum Corp. of Baltimore, one of the six founding companies of Onvance. "It's the most innovative marketing technique we have right now."

Crown owns 24 of the convenience stores that are installing the system in Columbus and Augusta. Crown plans to have the system in all of the more than 200 convenience stores it owns by the end of the summer, Dumont said.

The nation's 131,778 convenience stores, including 5,486 in Georgia , generate annual sales of about $283 billion, according to a 2002 State of the Industry report compiled by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), the trade association that represents the industry.

After more than a year of testing the concept in stores in Raleigh , N.C. , and Denver , Onvance has installed the satellite communication systems in about 350 convenience stores in six states during the past year. Onvance is introducing the service to Georgia this summer by installing the system in about 40 stores in Columbus and Augusta, said Alan Slothower, president and chief operating officer of Onvance.

The system provides a 90-minute loop of video programming that includes about 60 percent advertising and 40 percent content, such as news, weather, sports and music videos. Tests have shown that sales at convenience stores that use the video increase about 7 percent, Slothower said.

The system also cuts costs for the stores by providing high-speed Internet access for processing credit-card and debit-card transactions, allowing the stores to eliminate telephone lines dedicated to those transactions, he said.

In addition to the satellite system, Onvance installs package mailing boxes in the stores, which attract more people, and potential customers, into the stores.

Onvance has a goal of putting the system into more than 3,000 stores by the end of the year. During the past month, the company began offering the system to convenience stores outside the original six oil companies and is looking for customers in the Atlanta area, Slothower said. If everything goes as planned, Onvance will have the system in about 30,000 stores within the next five years, he said.

Slothower declined to disclose the annual revenue of the company but said the company isn't profitable yet. The company derives revenue from selling time on the video loop to advertisers and charging convenience stores a monthly fee, Slothower said.

Enhancing savings, profit

Onvance charges each store $350 a month for the service.

In return, store owners save about $150 each month on their telephone bills while adding about $1,400 in profits from the advertising and more than $600 in profits from the package delivery service each month, he said.

"That's the goal," said Bill Dumont, senior vice president of strategic marketing for Crown Central Petroleum Corp. of Baltimore, one of the six founding companies of Onvance. "It's the most innovative marketing technique we have right now."

Crown owns 24 of the convenience stores that are installing the system in Columbus and Augusta. Crown plans to have the system in all of the more than 200 convenience stores it owns by the end of the summer, Dumont said.

The nation's 131,778 convenience stores, including 5,486 in Georgia , generate annual sales of about $283 billion, according to a 2002 State of the Industry report compiled by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), the trade association that represents the industry.

"There's a certain amount of public reaction to too much information," said Claire Pamplin, editor in chief of Convenience Store News, a trade publication that follows the industry and which recently profiled Onvance.

But advances in technology offer some of the best opportunities for store owners to increase profits, said Mike Mason, media relations manager for NACS.

Some stores are trying to attract customers by offering free Internet access at kiosks in the stores. Some are offering cards that can be used at the pump to pay for gas. Some broadcast audio advertising messages to customers as they are using the pumps.

"There are a lot of companies trying to find new and different ways to attract customers and increase sales," Mason said.

Other companies have tried to expand the role of technology in convenience store operations but none have offered a system as comprehensive as Onvance's, Pamplin said.

Irving Oil Ltd. of Canada , which has more than 800 convenience stores in Canada and New England , formed the coalition of oil companies that financed Onvance. Irving contacted 18 other oil companies before choosing its five partners. The founding members include Xtramart Convenience Stores of Connecticut, Conoco Inc. (NYSE: COC) of Houston, Crown Central Petroleum, Suncor Energy Inc. (NYSE: SU) of Canada and Tesoro Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: TSO) of San Antonio .

Many of the managers for Onvance came from the oil companies and the entire board of directors is composed of executives from the companies, Slothower said.

Onvance employs 34 people at its Midtown offices.